>>3327937A video is 1 actuation of the shutter.
>Hmmmm.... Were you recording anything that wasn't picked up by the sensor? I'm most afraid of having equipment that fails to record the entire scene of what my eyes are seeing.With the 300mm, yes. Only what you see in the video could be picked up. With the 50mm it actually picked up a lot more than you see in the webm. You can see clouds and stars, but not dark objects around the area.
With a tripod, you won't get better video with brighter output. It will be a static and not shaky if you leave it alone so there's that I guess, like a security cam. For photos, a tripod will allow you do to long exposures. I suppose that's only good if you have a parked UFO you want to photo at night.
Here's what the D3400 with the 50mm f/1.4 can do; cranked to f/1.4 for 30 seconds of exposure with ISO100. I can't get anymore star photos/vids due to fog as you can see. This is the dead of night, fyi.